Envy
by SalvaVeritate
Summary: If Sebastian Valmont could see, how would he feel whenever he sees a flash of auburn hair coming towards his grave from a distance?


**Roger Kumble is the owner. Wahh**

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If Sebastian Valmont could see, how would he feel whenever he sees a flash of auburn hair coming towards his grave from a distance? Would he feel angry? Happy? Or just sad? My feet stop and I find myself standing in front of him, or more specifically his grave. I can sense his disappointment even though he's been gone for a year. The flash of brown hair he'd seen was mine, and I was not her. I was not my cousin. I was not Kathryn. She was gone, shipped off by her mother in shame for the disgrace she'd brought upon the entire family. Funny how it goes, doesn't it, Valmont? You both lost what you treasured the most, Kathryn with her precious reputation and you lost her, and then your life. I could say that you were on the losing end of the game, but then again, death would be a better option for Kathryn right now. Did you die thinking that she'd killed you? Did you think about what she was doing during your last few moments on earth? Or did you think of Annette Hargrove?

You know, I met you only once, but I doubt you'd remember. I was Cassidy Merteuil, beautiful, determined, and for that night, utterly hesitant to approach you. That shouldn't have been the case, I was a Merteuil, and Merteuils were powerful, beautiful women who got what they wanted, but that night, that cursed night of painful realizations, I was not channeling the traits that had been passed on to me.You were looking around from the bar, dressed in a dark suit that brought out the haunting, beautiful look in your blue eyes. I couldn't stop looking at you, it was almost as if you were a rare specimen that only came once in a lifetime, maybe you were that for me. The embodiment of the unanswered questions I would've never even thought about in the first place... But l remember that night. I loved you for the briefest second, because you were the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. Not even Jason and most certainly not Patrick can compare to you. There was a party that night I first saw you, one of Aunt Tiffany's and everybody who was anybody was there. I was thirteen and you were fifteen, you were holding a glass of champagne in your hand and you already had that bored look on your handsome face, and I remember thinking how someone so young could already be so tired of life. Don't get me wrong, even at that age, I was already attracting the attention of suitors, but at that point, I was overcome with the urge to talk to you, because you mirrored what I felt, you had this discontented look in your crystal blue irises that I wanted to understand. It was an infatuation, lust, and love all combined into one craving, pure and simple, this attraction to your red, pouty lips and your curly blond locks, I could feel my confidence slipping away because I'd heard so much about you. You were the unattainable Sebastian Valmont, whose reputation preceded you. I smoothed out my dress and tilted my head up, making sure the light caught the golden brown of my eyes and the shine of my hair at its lustrous best. These were my best features, and I intended to use it to get you.

Suddenly, I caught my breath and before I knew it, your gaze was probing into mine. I was not thirteen anymore, I was older, a teenager, and then a woman, maturing and aging before your piercing eyes. My emotions were suddenly more intense and more passionate somehow. While this may not sound entirely poetic, I wanted you inside of me right then and there. I had never been more determined to do anything else in my life, even my alliance with Jason to destroy Patrick would pale in comparison to the raw need to have you.

_"Let me be your Sebastian_" that was what Jason said to me once. That was the point of me entertaining him, wasn't it? Jason thought that maybe if he acted more like you, talked like you, even looked at me the way he imagined you would if you were there, then maybe I'd see him as I saw you that night. It kills him sometimes, I can sense it, but what can I do? He's not you. He'll never be you.

As our eyes met, I raised an auburn eyebrow, a trademark snide and mischievous look on my face and I waited for you to smile back. Most of them did, most of them would have approached me and offered to get me a drink. But you were different, weren't you, Sebastian? It was that kind of questioning, probing stare that I was only too happy to hold on to, because that was the only thing you and I had. That single moment locked and frozen in my memories even after you were gone. I was about to smile at you when your deep set eyes suddenly wavered from our gaze and you were looking at something behind my shoulder. What could it be? What could be so strong that you would break this gaze with me, when I had done all I could in my silent flirtation and showed off all my best features.

What was it you wanted, Sebastian?

I slowly turned around and my little green friend reappeared just as it had done so many times in my childhood. Of course. Her. Kathryn Merteuil, whose eyes were as green as the rampant sneering jealousy that was overcoming me so quickly. Kathryn looked beautiful that night, didn't she? I may envy the bitch most of the time, but I'm secure enough to admit that she's definitely one of the best looking women in the family. Dressed in a dark, silk cocktail dress, as dark as the darkest nightmares children had... She was death and you were staring at her, wanting her and craving her...You should have chosen me. I would never have killed you, Sebastian. I would have loved you back, I would have...

I stopped thinking for a moment when I saw something that made me shake my head slightly as I looked from her, back to you, and then back at her again. There was a hidden smile on both your beautiful mouths, and you averted your eyes to the magnificent scene of beauty and wealth, as if silently mocking the world we all resided in, and then back at her. You were easily distracted, but not when it came to her. When it came to my cousin, you had all the time in the world just to be with her

Look how that turned out.

I stepped aside, back into the safety of the mingling socialites again, but I never stopped watching. It was too good and too rare for me to witness my cousin actually feel something other than boredom and apathy. I don't know if you've noticed it, but as soon as you watched her, Kathryn seemed to glow a bit more, her shy, poised smile turned into a real one under your scrutiny.

Did you see it, Sebastian?

You placed your drink down and came up to her, no longer bearing the suffering look on your face once she was there. You placed your hand on the small of her back, the touch light, but the feelings that were being implied raged on in its own battle of self control and boundaries. You were both watching your actions, being so careful that nobody would see that although you were stepsiblings, you were really more than that. But I saw, and I envied Kathryn more than anything else in the world. As you leaned in and whispered something in her ear, your lips lightly brushed her earlobe and she turned to face you, her face flushed yet her emerald eyes bearing a silent scolding.

How many times have you kissed her and how many times have you both tried to keep your tainted feelings for each other your own version of tainted? How many times have you placed your hand on her body and how many times have you felt her tense up, did you feel it when the temperature of her body rose up at your mere presence? I may not have felt what she was feeling at that point, although I wish I had. But let me tell you something, you may have caused me to make a stammering idiot out of myself, but one thing your intense gaze never took away from me was my ability to read people. And that, my dearly departed Sebastian, was what I fully used on Kathryn.

Let me be the one to tell you this in case you didn't know and in case she never has a chance to be here for the rest of her life out of the immense guilt she'd felt at having had an influence in your death. Kathryn loved you, okay? She fucking loved you so much that she asked, no, pleaded for me to visit you here. Maybe since we were related, it would be like she were here with me. I think we both know by now that Kathryn never pleaded, and even if she did, it would most certainly not to me, who had been her opponent for everything we could think of competing and using as leverage against the other.

You should have seen her face when Cecile handed her the journal, and when I'm being cruel, vindictive, and hateful because she killed you and she spat in the face of the Merteuil name, I wish I could have seen it too. But for those who did... They would tell you how her beautiful face fell the moment she saw her own picture staring up at her, along with a few written details. Coke Problem. Alcoholic. Bulimic. Deceitful. And then, at the top. My Love. I would laugh at the ludicrous sentiment of that phrase if you hadn't been the one who wrote it. Coming from you, it was heartbreaking, because I felt for you the moment I got my hands on a copy. You loved someone who never allowed themselves to love you back. It was always too little, and you wanted more, didn't you? That's why you ran to Annette Hargrove. She was the opposite of Kathryn: Kindhearted, pure, and innocent. All the things Kathryn wasn't. Tell me, though, did it really go away even after you've 'made love' to her? Did the name Kathryn ever really escape the tip of your tongue as you played with the virgin's mouth? Did you really think that by cleansing yourself through Annette's willing love, you would forget the bittersweet torture my cousin brought you? Did your insides feel the same so called love you did when you fucked her gently, again doing the opposite of what you would have done to Kathryn? Kathryn liked it rough, and, from what I've heard, so did you. You were doing everything that would have never been done with Kathryn, but it never went away, did it? That's what made you angry, that's what made you more determined to love Annette. You were in a battle with yourself, to just allow yourself to forget the brown hair and green eyes of sin and seek redemption in the ethereal golden hair and blue eyes. You couldn't. You loved her. You died for Annette because you wanted to stick it to Kathryn,

_Fuck you, Kat, I chose her, didn't I?_

Maybe those were your final thoughts. Or maybe, as you stared disbelievingly into Annette Hargrove's eyes and even called her name, you were somewhere else, dying a slow death in someone else's arms, and looking into someone else's eyes. Maybe you were thinking of a different place, in a different time, when things were simpler and you were happier.

Or maybe, just maybe, you were just thinking of her. Kathryn in general, and you didn't mind the fight and the bet and the declaration of war. Maybe as the tears fell from your blinking gorgeous eyes, you were thinking that the eyes you were looking at were a dark green, and the skin of the palm that held your aching head on was paler and softer. And when you told Annette you loved her, the tears in your eyes said otherwise. The hand you grabbed wasn't hers, but it was cold and it was what you wanted really wanted. Sometimes, when I visit you or I visit her, there's one commonality between the two of you. You're both dead, only Kathryn's grave is in a place called Methadone Clinic. She's there, confined and locked up maybe forever, or at least until the scandal goes away. Would you like me to tell you about her, Sebastian? I'm sure you've missed her, because I know that she's an empty ghost of a person without you. She doesn't look well, and even I've started to pity her. Nobody visits her now, and she's always alone. She's emaciated and degraded every time they almost force feed her. She's being watched every hour, in case she tried to make herself sick. But she's been sick for a long time, and we both know that. She's been sick and you've been her only form of real medication. Then you died, and now she's wasting away without you. The confidence in her eyes are gone now, ever since you've destroyed her. Now, she's sad, not bothering to mask her loneliness anymore. Her mouth hasn't curved into a smile in a while, even when I told her that Annette accidentally totaled your car.

Yes, Sebastian. You heard right. The hick totaled your prized Jag. Just so you know, Kathryn would have never even driven it. She would have just probably screwed with your head with one of those twistedly beautiful mind games only the two of you had before giving it back to you (For a price of course, because she wouldn't be Kathryn without the ulterior motives) I bet you're absolutely livid by now. Serves you right, you stupid prick.

I wonder if she'll ever smile again. I do miss having an opponent. But I didn't win. My battle with Kathryn? My battle based on jealousy with her was gone. She won after all, because she had the one thing I could never have.

She had you. I had to respect that, and after reading your journal and seeing what you've done to her, I do. That's why I'm here. Kathryn couldn't get out, and she asked me to visit you for her. I do these things for her because nobody else in the family wants anything to do with her now. She was the once most beautiful prized doll in the Merteuil family, I admit, even more beautiful than me. Well, Valmont, thanks to your idiotic bet, that virgin bitch, and your pathetic display of sentiment for the wrong person, that doll now bore a cracked head and nobody wanted to look at her anymore. I don't know if you know, but there are times when, like, her, I would wonder what would have happened if she had been present during the accident.

Would she cry as you lay bloodied and broken? Would she laugh at you and goad you even until you died? I know what she would have done. Kathryn would have pushed Annette out of the way and would not bat an eyelash in case blondie fell on her ass. (I met her at your funeral, by the way. I don't know if it was the Merteuil blood in my veins, but I disliked her the moment I realized she was the one who ruined everything, partly because I hadn't been the one to bring the great Kathryn down, and partly because seeing her with you caused me to realize that maybe not everyone of us in the family are doomed to relationships full of sex and power. You and Kathryn had more than that even though you'd both rather eat shit and live in the mountains before either of you admit it.) She only saw_ you_, she always had. It was the same during the party when I first saw you, didn't you notice it? Her stare would sometimes waver and she'd glance disinterestedly at the other people, but she would often come back to you. That's all she wants now, but it's too late. You're gone, and she's still alive in her own kind of hell.

If she had been there, she would have gone down on her knees, she wouldn't crouch as Annette had done. She would kneel down gracefully, and she would look at you and you both would have another one of your intense gazes wherein the world around you splintered into nothing and the only reality you saw were in the eyes of the other. Then her eyes would water and she would hold your hand, and although you both wanted to scream a large number of profanities at each other, although you wanted to kill her and she wanted to finish the job the cab had started, you'd remain silent. There would be none of that annoying pathetic weeping that Dorothy had done, you were both too fucking good for that. Your grief was beyond tears. She would have caressed your face and wiped away the blood, her eyes never leaving yours. Kathryn would have ignored Annette if she'd tried to get her away from you, because in the midst of the meeting of your eyes, Annette had been shattered into shards of meaningless pieces that were unworthy of her attention and yours. Then, she would have taken your hand and ran her thumb through the bruised knuckles, and you would both forgive each other for each and every hurtful, dumb thing you both had done.

You win. You might have told her that if she were there, but don't you see it? You both lost. Because you're in a place wherein you could never have her and she's in a place wherein she could never tell you the things she wanted to say. So, do I still envy her? Yes, in a way. Because the kind of twisted, fucked up love you had with each other was something that was too rare and unique for anybody else to possess. Yes, it hurt, yes, it was fucking painful, but those moments of immense passion between you two, that's what I envied. That's what I'll never have with Jason or even with that stupid idiot Prince Christopher. They weren't you, Sebastian, and they will never be you, just like I'd never be Kathryn.

You should have chosen me. You should've talked to me that night, then maybe you'd still be alive. But then again, I was not her. That was what was wrong with me. It wasn't my lack of confidence or my lack of poise, because God knows I possess those traits. It wasn't because of who I was, it was because of who I wasn't. I've never believed in life after death, but I hope for your sake and Kathryn's that you've visited her at that damned place. She's gone, Sebastian. The legacy of Kathryn Merteuil and Sebastian Valmont was gone.

I envy her still despite all this because it's her you loved.

I pause for a few more minutes, adjusting the wide brim of my black hat. My thoughts were finished, I was finished addressing you once again, Mr. Valmont. You're still the most beautiful man I had ever seen. I wonder how it would have felt like if you had kissed me that one night I first saw you, but I know it wouldn't have been possible. You only belonged to one Merteuil, and I was not that woman. Kathryn and Sebastian. A pair to behold... Funny how it took an innocent virgin to break it apart.

But was it really broken, Sebastian? If you can see her as I do whenever I visit, you'll see... You'll see how much she holds on to that history, yours and hers, to keep her from truly being nothing. Do you hate her, Sebastian? Because she can never hate you.

If you're hearing all this right now, if you're reading my thoughts, maybe you can give me some sort of sign that you can. I've never been particularly close with my cousin, especially since I envy her more than I can care for her, but she needs to know, Sebastian. She needs to know what you, me, and hell, even Annette Hargrove probably knows. She needs to know that you love her, and that you could never stop even after the life had been drained out of you. You've always been the philosophical one, right? So what is life for you? Is it merely the physical movement of one's body, or does it go beyond that? It probably does for you, after all, you are Sebastian Valmont. Asshole, player, and the only jerk my cousin loved. It takes a lot to make Kathryn feel so much, that's how I knew you were so far above the others.

Well, it's time for me to leave now... I bent my knees and leaned forward, using a manicured finger to touch the cold, marble slab that served as a marker for your resting place. My brown eyes sweep through the ornately carved letters that spelled out your name, not really seeing the gravestone. I prefer to remember the way you'd looked that night. You will never age nor die for me, and especially not for Kathryn.

Rest in peace, Sebastian, because she never will. Not until she sees you again.

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End file.
